


Come What May

by rowofstars



Series: 1200 Follower Promptathon [5]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, Arguing, Established Relationship, F/M, Prompt Fic, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-09-08 04:51:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8831122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rowofstars/pseuds/rowofstars
Summary: For my 1200 Follower Promptathon: Anon asked for: Golden Lace. Cemetery. "Why are you here?" Emotions.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah so this… this happened. I feel like I’m starting something since this is an idea I’d always wanted to play with.

Gold followed the path up over the low hill, bending his head and angling the umbrella to block the chilling late November rain. He was hurrying as fast as he could and his leg was killing him. He’d already been to three other places looking for her, and this was his last resort. If she wasn’t here, then he had no idea where to go next, and that thought terrified him.

He came down towards a large tree, its leaves brown and its branches half empty, and there she was. She was kneeling by one of the grave markers, still wearing the same outfit that she’d had on when she stormed out of his shop. The skirt was short, as usual, her blouse light and silky, and her red jacket was more for style than actual protection from the cold. She had to be freezing. His dress shoes slipped a little on the wet, loose stones of the path as he made his way down to her. If he’d had the time he would have put on a pair of boots or something more sturdy, but their fight and the way she’d left made him panic.

For the first time in a long time, Gold knew real fear. He’d locked up the shop without bothering to turn the lights off and almost ran down the street to try to catch her. It was barely a block before he knew he wouldn’t catch up to her, wherever she’d gone. So it was back to the shop to get his car and spend most of the afternoon driving around Storybrooke until he found her.

He didn’t know what made him think she’d be here, but the feeling was there and he’d trusted it.

“Lacey!” he called out.

She didn’t move and he frowned, walking as fast he could with a cane, a bad ankle, and an umbrella.

“Lacey,” he repeated as he came to stand next to her.

“Fuck off, Gold.” She didn’t look at him, just stared at the grave marker.

She only called him Gold anymore when she was well and truly fucking angry. 

Gold sighed and looked down at the engraved granite slab, half embedded in the ground.

_Colette French._

_Beloved wife, mother, and sister._

His throat felt tight and he swallowed hard. “Lacey,” he said again, his voice strained. “Sweetheart, _please_ look at me.”

Lacey’s shoulders lifted and then fell, and finally she sat back on her heels and looked up at him. “Why are you here?”

Her eyes were red and she looked completely soaked through, her body trembling with tiny shivers that she was trying to hold back. The ground was soft and muddy and her legs were covered only by a pair of sheer, black stockings.

Gold sighed again and fumbled with his cane and the umbrella as he knelt down beside her. “I came to find you.”

She let out a scoffing laugh and shook her head. “Why bother?”

“Lacey -”

She pivoted on her knees and scowled at him. “ _No_ ,” she snapped. “ _Don’t_.”

Gold’s jaw tensed. She was still mad, though if it was at him or the situation he wasn’t sure, and her anger was making him angry all over again. This was how they always ended up having these flaming rows. They’d scream and shout, a door would get slammed, and they’d go a day or so without speaking. That was always followed by rather vigorous makeup sex during which something usually got broken, and things were either let go or never talked about again. It worked, but it wasn’t healthy long term.

“Hey,” he said after a long moment, and reached up to touch her shoulder. She tried to shrug him off, but he took hold of her arm and tugged it to make her look at him again. “We’ll handle it, alright? Everything will be fine.”

Lacey yanked her arm away from him and stood up, stumbling a bit when the heel of her left shoe sunk into the ground. 

“ _Handle_ it?!” she asked sharply. “I don’t want it _fucking_ handled, Gold.”

Gold pushed to his feet as well, wincing at the stiffness in his leg and the pain that shot up through his hip. His pants were soaked from the knee down and caked with mud. It was cold and wet and they were a mess in more ways than he could count, but he had to fix this.

“Lace -”

“No!” she shouted. Fresh tears welled up in her eyes and she didn’t bother to wipe them away. She blinked and they started rolling down her cheeks as Gold’s hand tightened on the handle of his cane.

“This isn’t some situation where you can make a deal,” she said. “You can’t call in a favor, or use fancy worded contracts, or _whack_ somebody with your cane.” 

She paused and licked her lips, getting a mix of rain and tears on her tongue. At that exact moment, as if on cue in some ridiculously dramatic movie, lightning flashed and thunder rumbled overhead. The rain picked up from an annoying sprinkle to something more steady.

Gold glanced up at the sky, and moved forward to try to shelter her under his umbrella, but she stepped back and folded her arms over her chest.

“I’m _pregnant_ ,” she said, for the second time today. Somehow this time seemed infinitely more weighty.

“I _know_ ,” he said, exasperated. “And I just - I want -”

Lacey bit her lip as she watched him. “What _do_ you want?” she asked. 

He stared at her for a few seconds, trying to figure out how to get the words out.

“You,” he managed. “Lacey, I just want you.”

She seemed almost stunned at that, her mouth opening slightly and her eyebrows lifting.

“That’s what I was _trying_ to tell you before you flipped out and ran off,” he continued. He shut his eyes, praying he could get through this without breaking down and becoming a blubbering mess.

“Yeah,” she scoffed. “I know what you were trying to say.”

He frowned and shook his head. “ _No_ , you don’t. You never give me a chance to get the words out, you’re always -” he motioned with his cane, and then set it down, sighing.

 _Here we go again_ , he thought.

Lacey’s jaw tensed and sniffed loudly. “I always _what_?”

Gold looked down at the ground for a moment and then at her. “You always - confound me.”

She snorted and looked over at the path, away from her mother’s grave. “Yeah.”

There was a hint of a smile there, and he took a chance and stepped closer. She didn’t move away.

“And you amaze me,” he said, waiting until she’d turned back to look at him again. “You - delight me. You make me furious, and crazy, and - and - happy.”

Her face changed suddenly. Her eyes softened, her lips parted, and her chin quivered. “Ha - happy?” she repeated.

He nodded, smiling slightly. “I love you.” 

She startled at that, her body shifting and straightening, her eyes widening in surprise. “ _What_?”

Gold shrugged. “I love you, Lacey,” he said. “That’s what I wanted to say earlier when you came to the shop. I wasn’t going to asked you to - to do anything you didn’t want to do. I wasn’t going to push you into something to get my way.”

She ran a hand over her wet hair and shivered. Her anger had left her and now she was starting to feel the effects of the weather. “You - you weren’t?”

“ _No_ ,” he insisted. “I would _never_. Lacey -”

He stepped towards her, closing the distance between them, and she gratefully ducked under the umbrella. It brought them almost chest to chest, and he was finally able to take her under one arm and pull her against him, his cane trapped between them. She went willingly, her arms slipping under his overcoat and suit jacket to squeeze his middle. He was warm and solid; she clung to him as the rain hit the back of her coat, her anchor keeping her from being washed out to sea.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled into his damp dress shirt. “I don’t know what to do.”

Gold dropped a kiss to the top of her head. “I know, sweetheart, I don’t either.”

She pulled back and looked up at him. “You don’t?”

He shook his head. “Not a clue.” Then he sighed. “But whatever you want, keep it or don’t. Baby, or no baby. I love you.”

Lacey lost it. Whatever remained of her anger and pain came out in one great sob, all but screamed into his chest. He held her close, somehow managing to balance the umbrella, her, and his cane, even on the muddy, sinking ground.

After a couple of minutes, she pulled back and looked up at him, her eyes clear and her lips curving slightly. “I love you, too”

Gold laughed.

She frowned. “Why is that funny?”

He shook his head. “We’re a mess, sweetheart.”

She stepped back and looked down at their muddy legs, matching from the knee down, and their clothes that were soaked through. Then she lifted her eyes to his and shrugged. She knew he meant that in more ways than just the dirt on their clothes and the soggy state of their hair.

“I told you I was trouble,” she said, but he shook his head again and pulled her close.

“No,” he whispered, kissing her temple. “You’re a wonder.”

A short, sobbing laugh escaped her, and she squeezed him one more time before they parted.

“Come home, Lacey,” he pleaded, pushing her damp hair back from her face. When she nodded he felt like he could finally breathe again. 

“There’s a roast in the oven,” he added, as if she needed that extra incentive to come with him.

She laughed lightly. “With the little carrots?” she asked, holding up her thumb and index finger an inch apart or so.

He nodded. “With the little carrots.”

After some maneuvering and switching of the umbrella from his hands to hers, they made their way up over the hill and back to his car. In short order, it started, and heat was pumping out on high as they wound their way out of the cemetery. They both knew there would be much to talk about later, but somehow finally getting their feelings out in the open made a lot of that less daunting. 

Gold could now envision two futures. One where there was a little brown haired girl on the sofa between them, with blue eyes like her mother and her nose in a book. And another where there was nothing between them at all except one of those flimsy, lacy things she liked to wear sometimes to drive him mad. As he pulled out onto the main road, he realized that he liked both, that they could have both if they wanted to. It wasn’t like he was likely to keep his hands off her just because she was pregnant, or just because there was a small child in the house. And if there wasn’t a child, that was fine too. They’d move on and build whatever life they wanted. Maybe they could start traveling to all those places she’d always wanted to go.

Whatever she decided, whatever she wanted, he loved her. And he’d be happy with any future so long as Lacey loved him too. They were going to be together, come what may.


End file.
